Thirty years ago, Douglas Mazell began working in light; now he makes light work for him. His range of experience has taken him from newspapers to aerospace, pro sports, the Harley Nation, commercial advertising and lately to a make-believe alien space ship in a Hollywood movie. The common thread in all these locations and projects is light; Mazell understands LIGHT as no one else. The United States Patent Office has even awarded Mazell a patent that could push digital photography further into the realm of what the human eye can record.


For Mazell, a surprise $50 payday from a 1976 college newspaper photo assignment was the first glimpse that something as enjoyable as photography could also pay the bills. A degree program at Pierce Community College in the suburbs of Los Angeles set his career direction, and introduced Mazell to the fast-paced and exciting world of photojournalism. One of the highlights of his college career was a news photo published on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.


After college, Mazell worked the daily beat as a news photographer on two Los Angeles-area newspapers. Capturing the real world with his camera, he quickly learned how easy it was to produce exciting photos by chasing the radio calls of the local police and fire departments. For six months Mazell was exposed to a steady diet of news, feature and sports assignments. Some days were more fun then others, but there was always something missing: snow! At 23, it was time to leave L.A., so with a college friend Mazell traded in his full-time newspaper job for a seat in a 1967 El Camino, and headed north. A two-week road adventure ended in Central Oregon, an apartment on a hill overlooking the small town was his new base of operations.


Originally, the mountains of Montana were the final destination, but by chance it seemed Bend, Oregon, had all the necessary qualities. His first job was working deep in the forest clearing existing logging roads, after three months a night job opened up at local small town newspaper. When winter arrived, a weekend job at Mt. Bachelor Ski Resort also became available. This schedule was now perfect as this left him time for the most important work of all: skiing every day, Monday through Friday. The first winter in this small town, with a population of 18,000, was a pleasant change from sprawl of Los Angeles and it’s 3 million plus population. There was no doubt this was a different location and a different lifestyle as the nighttime temperatures plunged to delightful minus 17 degrees, quite the change from sunny Southern California. Central Oregon had year round outdoor actives and there was plenty to photograph. Mazell slowly moved from night time lab tech to a part time staff photographer.


The Bend Bulletin was part of the United Press International wire service and his work was routinely distributed over the UPI system of newspapers. A ski photo taken by Mazell that moved over the UPI wire in December of 1979 ran in 100’s of daily newspapers across the country and was eventually published in Newsweek magazine. A quarter century later, a 5 x 4 foot version of the photo still hangs in the lodge at Mount Bachelor. The owner of the ski resort constantly sough out Mazell on weekends to show yet another clipping from a far off newspaper with the photo of the CINDER CONE and it’s perfect deep powder tracks. His favorite was from the New York Daily News as they described the photo as skiing on the surface of the moon.


After three years of skiing and photography, Mazell returned to Los Angeles, where he worked full time at a southern California aerospace corporation. During the day as the only photographer for a 2,000-employee division of Hughes Aircraft, his duties ranged from products, portraits, aerial photography, video, construction, and everything else in between. At night, Mazell attended the Art Center School of Design, UCLA, Long Beach State and Long Beach Community College for lighting and film classes


During this period Mazell also discovered the amazing profitable world of stock photography. INDEX STOCK and WIRE IMAGE STOCK represent his work today.


After learning how to re-create natural lighting situations in the studio Mazell hit the field on weekends and nights as he started shooting professional sports for national magazines. He covered all the Los Angeles teams and stars of the 1980's. It was the decade of the L.A. Lakers, and Mazell spent many a basketball game seated under the basket recording the amazing play of Magic Johnson and Kareem Jabbar. He perfected his use of very long lenses for football and baseball games.


With skiing still on his mind, Mazell started shooting World Cup Ski Races in Utah and Colorado. In 1986, Mazell spent a month following the European World Cup Ski circuit, which ran through France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Of course along with the press credential was access to the best skiing Europe had to offer. Mazell was shooting the world's top racers for ski equipment and clothing manufacturers and Sports Illustrated.


As the cold war ended in 1989 so did Mazell's career in aerospace, and he immediately moved into shooting 16mm and 35mm film projects as well as shooting stills on motion picture productions. An eight-day shoot in the desert complete with explosions and huge roaring flames highlighted this period (see PARTY in the cinematography menu). Other projects were a TV movie regarding domestic violence, a stand up female comic and an out of work stunt man and his resourceful wife.


In 1994 an opportunity arrived to move back into still photography in the crazy world of the Harley Davidson motorcycle. Mazell was tapped to shoot everything Harley for Easyriders Magazine, and that meant learning to photograph highly reflective chrome and a lot of it. Complete catalogs of biker clothing, hot-rod cars and girl in bikinis were some of the additional images produced during Mazell's five years in the motorcycle industry. An interesting section of the magazine was the page dedicated to Harley riders who just happened to be in jail; at least they had time to read every page.


The lure of riding a Harley was quickly squashed as Mazell saw four Easyriders employees 'go down' hard in a two-week period. Brain damage, a wheelchair and a permanent limp were just enough incentive for Mazell to keep his car.


After the roar of the Harleys faded, Mazell worked for a small stable of clients. This involved travel from one end of the U.S. to the other. Celebrities, fashion, gigantic construction projects, biotech and the shiny world of the aftermarket youth car industry kept Mazell busy until the beginning of 1995. Since then, workings as a director of photography on film and television productions have become more than half his work. His latest feature film about an alien who meets the wrong human was completed in June 2006.

Mazell lives in Huntington Beach, California where he now surfs with his 17-year-old son.